This invention relates generally to the field of telephony, and more particularly to an improved telephone building entrance terminal for use with subscriber-owned equipment which has been increasingly common in recent years. While entrance terminals of this type used for individual subscriber pairs offer no particular design difficulties, those which are employed to service a relatively large number of individual circuits installed, for example, in office buildings and residential condominiums, tend to be more complex and require the provision of a housing element having separate splice chambers and chambers for the mounting of individual circuit protector modules and connector blocks. Because of constantly changing service equipment, it is essential that access to the terminal be available to the telephone company in a convenient manner.
It is usual to provide a cover overlying the abovementioned chambers which is hingedly connected to a housing along one edge thereof, and which is secured in closed position by lockable means. When, as often occurs, the associated housing is mounted in relatively inaccessible areas, the opening of the cover by service personnel is usually not difficult, but the presence of the open cover, once opened, provides a hindrance to accessibility to the contents of the chambers disposed therebeneath. In some cases, it is not possible because of the presence of adjacent walls or other equipment to fully open the cover. It is known in the art to provide covers of a type which are not hingedly interconnected to the housing, but are fully removable. However, such covers tend to be less than fully effective from the standpoint of adequate sealing of the chambers, and lack adequate tamper-proof qualities.